


I am a Pilot of Precision

by lurrel



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Face Slapping, M/M, Painplay, Power Dynamics, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9089506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/pseuds/lurrel
Summary: K-2SO slaps him in the face -- and It’s been so long since someone’s touched him that Cassian can’t stop replaying it.





	

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> (inspired by the above, but set sometime before the film).

They’ve had to pretend to be lots of things before, but guard and prisoner is normally one of the safest ploys. Stormtroopers aren’t picked for their inquisitive nature, and who would reprogram one of their droids? The insignia on K-2SO’s shoulders means they’re safe, as long as Cassian can keep his mouth shut.

This guard, though, he stops them. He wants to _help_ , maybe, or maybe he’s suspicious. Maybe he’s angling to make officer, as though the Imperials select their officers from the regular dredges of the galaxy instead of from an elite pool of well-connected families.

Whatever it is, this guard isn’t letting them pass, and the data in Cassian’s pocket feels heavier by the second. He can’t even touch the chip to reassure himself -- he’s bound up, relying on K to get him through this again.

“I’m sure I don’t need any help with this one,” K-2SO says for the third time, and Cassian scoffs a little, playing the part. K’s arm pulls back and he only has a split-second warning before a metal hand collides with Cassian’s cheek, right at the jaw, a loud crack that takes a seconds to blossom from shock into pain.

He groans, losing his balance, and K grabs him by the hair to keep him upright. The whole episode is one bright throb of pain and discomfort -- his arms are cuffed behind his back and he’s unsteady enough on his feet as it is.

“I’ve got him under control,” he says, and those metal fingers dig into his scalp. Cassian doesn’t notice his sheer size that often; K-2SO is as familiar to him as the tug of hyperspace, as his own uniform. But K could shake him like a dog.

Cassian can’t stop thinking about that sharp tug on his scalp, or the bright flash that was K’s hand hitting his face. K apologizes once they’re back in the U-Wing, says he wasn’t sure what to do, and Cassian should be mad, really, but he isn’t. He just shrugs, says it’s fine, they’re here, aren’t they? It worked.

It takes him the whole flight back to base to figure it out -- it’s been so long since someone’s _touched_ him that he can’t stop replaying the hit, the pull at his hair. It’s absurd; who has time for hugs when they’re in the middle of a war, have been in the middle of a war for years, for his whole life. Here he is with blood on his hands and all he can think about is what it would feel like to have his skin against someone else’s. He’s never in cities long enough to think about sliding into a bar, let alone someone’s sheets, and he didn’t think he’d missed sex. But he’s missing something now.

-

Cassian Andor’s face is sore. He doesn’t notice it until after they’ve landed, a bruise blossoming on his zygomatic arch and through the hinge of his jaw. Cassian just wants a shower and to catch as many hours of sleep as he can before the assembly meetings in the morning -- he feels scraped out inside. Almost getting captured always leaves him a jangle of nerves, shot thru with adrenaline.

He doesn’t like covering his tracks because it involves looking back -- if he spent all his time brooding on his choices he’d never be able to make another one, so he doesn’t. Cassian looks forward almost always; he has to be focused on what’s ahead because whatever it is will probably try to kill him.

In the shower, he feels the ache as the warm water washes away other pains, his muscles slowly relaxing. His body slumps, a wave of exhaustion shuddering through him. There’s a warm throb there in his jaw, heavy. He thinks of the pain of the hit as he presses on the spot that hurts worst -- the startling shock of it, the feel of warm metal, the sheer familiarity it took.

He didn’t move out of the way when he saw it coming, stood there, let it connect. He knew it wouldn’t incapacitate, would hurt but be safe. He thumbs at it, wonders how bad the bruising will be, or if it’ll fade into a secret pain, like the way his side sometimes hurts where he got shot the very first time. He runs his other hand over his left bottom ribs, over the knot of scar tissue there. It’s faded with time -- it used to be raised and angry, easy to feel. Now it’s just a subtle difference; you’d have to know what you’re looking for to see it.

Cassian stays under the spray until it cools, until he feels heavy on his feet, ready to pass out into somewhere dark and dreamless. Instead, when he steps out of the ‘fresher, damp and wrapped in a towel, there’s someone else inside.

“Hello Cassian.”

Cassian blinks, mostly because he doesn’t see K sitting often, but especially not in his room, not on his bed. He’s not sure where K-2SO spends most of his alone time, honestly -- presumably with other droids in the hangar bay.

They’re together more often than not, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, wondering if getting dressed is rude, and if he cares. He knows he’s been naked in front of the droid before -- the U-Wing doesn’t afford too much privacy -- but it feels weirdly intimate now, the lights of K’s eyes blinking in the dim room.

“I wanted to apologize again.” K stands, body unfolding with elegant geometry to his full height. He looks too big for the tiny quarters, dwarfing Cassian by almost a foot. “I should have given you a warning.”

Cassian touches the side of his jaw, feels that ache, and looks up at him. “I don’t understand - you’re not a protocol droid. Apologies aren’t really your speed.”

K’s long arm reaches out, the small whirs of his mechanics loud in the relatively quiet quarters. He presses the flat box of his palm against the side of Cassian’s face.

“I feel,” he says, pausing. “I feel badly about it.”

His hand isn’t sunwarm like it had been -- it’s cool as he lays it against Cassian’s skin, the joints in his fingers flexing minutely. It’s so _intimate_ it makes him shiver, even if it’s a droid, even if it’s _his_ droid.

“You’re programmed to improvise,” Cassian says. His heart rate is high and the exhaustion is peeling away, being replaced with something he isn’t sure he wants to name. He tilts his head minutely into the metal.

“You programmed my improvisation.” K-2SO’s voice is flat, sometimes sardonic, but this sounds like an accusation. He can feels those fingers pressing into the muscle of his face, wonders what the sensors in them can feel. Wonders what K-2SO is thinking.

Prickles run up his spine and he says, “You’ve wanted to smack me around for years, K. I don’t buy it.”

K-2SO blinks, and his fingertip segments tap against the hinge of his jaw.

“Maybe remorse isn’t what I’m feeling, then,” he says, and Cassian exhales. He knows K, he knows he knows K, he scraped him raw and put him back together and told him to leave without looking back. He let K fly his ship, fly him home. He has to trust this, now.

“You should hit me again.” Cassian wants something and he doesn’t know if this is what he wants, but it’s the only thing he knows he can have.

K-2SO doesn’t, but he also doesn’t move his hand.

“I want you to hit me again,” Cassian, voice louder and rougher this time. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it. I know you.”

K lets his arm fall and takes a step back, like he needs to run a second threat assessment.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, Cassian.”

“I’m telling you to hit me! I know you’re barely able to follow orders, but this one is pretty simple! Even you should be able to do it.” He spits it, breathing fast, and he feels a terrible twist in his gut as he does. This is the part of him that grows with every mission. He doesn’t know how not to be this way, though, can only press the buttons he knows are there.

“It’s not that I don’t agree that you’re infuriating,” K says, voice steady as always. “I just don’t understand why you want me to hurt you? It’s not like you were very pleased about it earlier.”

Cassian know’s he’s probably flushed, pink high on his cheeks. He doesn’t understand it either, but his dick is interested, stirring under the towel. The pain in his jaw is so sweet and soft, and he needs -- he needs something, he knows it. He feels as tense as a bowstring, like the shower never happened, like he feels after a long-haul flight.

He curls his naked toes against the hard flooring of his quarters, his home away from space for as long as he needs it, Mon Mothma told him.

“Does it matter?” he asks, an K’s head tilts, appraising him. His eyes flicker as he stares down at Cassian.

“My primary role these days is keeping you out of trouble, making sure you _don’t_ get hurt.” K-2SO says. “You’ve programmed me for that.”

“What if this was a different way of looking out for me.” Cassian’s mouth feels dry. It’s as close to a truth as he’s allowed, these days.

“That could be acceptable. And you’re not wrong.”

“Wrong about --” but Cassian can’t finish the sentence -- he’s too busy being cracked across the face.

His eyes close automatically and he doesn’t open them immediately after, face stinging - K pulled his hit, of course, but it hurts.

“Of course I’ve wanted to hit you so many times, you stupid man,” K says, mechanical voice emphatic as it can be. He hits Cassian again, backhanded, and shoves him up against the wall by the shoulder, other hand splayed across his naked stomach. It makes him break out in goosebumps.

“You never listen to the odds,” he says, and the slap to his face isn’t nearly as bad as it could be when the arm behind it has strength enough to crush metal. K’s big, bent to loom over him, and smells like metal and oil and their ship.

“You never listen to reason.” K’s voice pops and crackles on the last word, and the last slap is softer, _tender_ , which is absurd when you look at his sheer size and scope.

The cool metal fingers linger there, on the bruise that’s already formed. It’s not at all like getting hit by a person -- the distribution of force is different, the pain more of a thud than a sting, and it lingers.

“You make me stay behind while you charge into danger, and expect me to wait patiently when the odds you’ll take an unnecessary risk are astronomically high.”

Andor isn’t so twisted up that he can’t realize he might have goaded K into this, somehow ordered K to participate in something ugly that he never would have done on his own. He doesn’t stop him though, don’t even move except to gasp when K-2SO pushes fingerpads into his bruise, pulling the ache out from inside him.

Cassian feels K’s other hand move delicately down his torso, fingers dragging down his stomach to his hips.

“You’re hard,” K says, and it’s only slightly surprised, barely a waver.

“I -” Cassian says, and then stops. What kind of explanation could he concoct that would make more sense than the truth, that he enjoys this, that he wants to feel something like it.

“It’s okay, Captain,” K says, and Cassian grabs his wrist before he can move that mechanical hand away from his abs.

“I know it’s okay,” he says, he demands, and K-2SO watches him silently for a moment and then steps back, just a little. Cassian lets him go.

K moves very, very carefully, and it still makes sweat prickle at Cassian’s temples. He pulls Cassian’s fingers off the towel he’s wearing, letting it fall to the floor.

“Do you want something else, Captain?” K isn’t impossible to read, but Cassian feels overwhelmed, a loud rushing in his ears when K reaches out to press his sharp-angled hand against the jut of his hipbone.

“I want,” he says and then hesitates, not sure. “What do you want?” It’s a dodge and they both know it.

“I can do this,” K-2SO says, and his hand moves up, catching a nipple between the segments of his metal fingertips. It hurts, sharp, crushing.

The pain is so good that Cassian lets his head fall back, lets the wall take his weight on his shoulders as K lets his nipple go and pinches the other, carefully.

He sucks in air, and lets his own hands slap against the wall. His brain is already fuzzing out, like it does during particularly good sex -- which this isn’t, but -- and it feels good, really good to be touched at all, even though it hurts. Especially because it hurts.

K-2SO clicks and whirrs to himself as he tries something else, scraping rough corners of his fingers down Cassian’s bare chest. He’s never had too much body hair and red lines are stark on his skin in the wake of K’s scratches.

“You should touch yourself,” K says, and it’s missing that sardonic air that normally accompanies any suggestion he has.

It’s not what Cassian’s expecting to hear -- his mouth is open anyway but he gapes.

“What?”

“You’re aroused, Cassian,” K says levely. “You should take care of yourself.”

Cassian shivers when K scratches down his chest a second time, fighting the urge to curl up in a ball to keep that feeling away from his soft skin. He wants it but his body isn’t cooperating quite right, and then K’s hand is slapping down on his thigh.

It’s feels like a thud, then ache, sweet and deep in his flesh. K hits him on the side of his hip, where it curves, and Cassian is working hard to breathe - he’s heaving for air every few seconds like it won’t be enough. It hurts maybe too much, the flesh tender and K-2SO’s control only so fine. He’ll have a deep bruise.

Cassian peels a sweaty palm from the wall and fumbles for his dick, which jumps under his touch. He’s mostly there, and a few dry strokes of his hand and his dick is at full hardness, a hot throb in his grip.

“That’s it, Captain,” K-2SO says. It’s the same tone of voice, he realizes, that the droid’s used when Cassian gets sick and won’t eat, won’t rest. He’s being coaxed.

K presses against his shoulder with one hand, pinning him to the wall, and he uses two fingers to scratch up and then down his thigh. It makes his knees almost buckle, the slice of hurt, the weird tenderness in the tilt of K’s head over him.

“Come on, Cassian,” K says and Cassian keeps jacking himself, the drag of his own skin a different almost-pain to counter the throb in his nipples, in his body.

He can’t keep looking up at K-2SO’s impassive face so he looks down at himself, at the span of K’s hand on his thigh, fingers incredibly close to his own hand and cock. K is still, just holding him up, and Cassian thinks about what it would be like to rut up against K’s thigh, strong and solid and metal up against the hot hardness of his dick.

There’s a twitch in K’s hand and then Cassian can’t stop staring at those fingers digging into his muscle. They’re long, an elegant, human design to them, and this is the most human thing of all, isn’t it? He strokes his cock and bites his lip.

He bucks his hips, fucking harder into his fist but also to feel that unyielding push of K-2SO’s hand. What would it be like to have one of those wide fingers inside of him -- cold and unyielding, stretching him out? Would K want to finger fuck him, get him on his hands and knees and make him beg? Or would he want to watch as pleasure broke all over his face, getting Cassian on his back and lifting one of his legs like it weighed nothing? How many fingers could Cassian take -- would K want him to take?

He gasps, twists his wrist, pleasure thrumming in his gut and spreading up his pink-stained, scratched and scored chest. K’s hand stutters against his skin as he moves it up to his torso, fingers tapping tiny pains across his ribs. Cassian tries not to think, just focuses on the heat pooling in his groin, lets his body ride the sensations into a cresting pleasure.

K’s hand moves back up to his nipple, and he’s less careful now, the pain of his fingers pinching a harsh wash against the glow of arousal, and Cassian shuts his eyes, tries to think of someone touching him softly. Instead, he moans loud when K-2SO lets his nipple go again, blood rushing in a wave of opposing pain to the one it’s replacing.  

He feels K’s hand cradle his face, the touch of his thumb against his bottom lip. It makes his spine tingle and that’s it, another twist of his hand and he comes, hot and shaky with orgasm. His knees knock together.

Panting, he leans into K’s chest, the metal slightly below the room temperature and thus cool against his overheated skin. It’s strange against his mouth, and he can see the faint imprint of his old restraining bolt on his chest plate.

K-2SO does not embrace him like a lover might. He stands, impassive and big and broad, and Cassian feels the glow of orgasm ebb away. In its place comes a unease -- who was goading who in this endeavor? What line, if any, did he just cross? He listens to the vague mechanical ticks of K’s body for a while, timing his breathing. The metal feels good against his sore jaw.

Cassian eventually straightens, trying to move out of the shadow of his droid. K bends and picks up his towel, handing it over.

“You should get some sleep,” K says, and Cassian isn’t sure what to say.

“Thanks?” is what he lands on, wiping his hand. “Do you want me to --” he motions at K’s chassis with his towel. He, in fact, can’t stop staring at the splatter of jizz on the V of the droid’s hips.

“I can handle it myself.” K takes the towel and dabs delicately at himself.

“Is there...what can I do for you?” Cassian isn’t sure what the protocol is, if he’s supposed to pretend nothing happened, but he isn’t one to leave a job half-finished. It’s a point of professional pride, after all.

“Droids don’t have the same needs as you organics seem to,” K-2SO says, like he’s chiding him, and Cassian swallows.

“I didn’t ask you to--”

“Yes you did, and I complied.”

“I asked you to _hit_ me!” Cassian feels half hysterical with exhaustion now, can feel himself sway on his feet.

“I assumed it was foreplay, and don’t even try to tell me I was wrong.”

“I didn’t mean -- fine, forget it. You were right.”

“I don’t forget things,” K snaps back. “It was a singular experience, _Captain_ , and you are right, I didn’t come here to apologize.”

Cassian’s mouth snaps shut at that, so K continues, “I’ll see you at the de-briefing tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

K-2SO glides out his door in a flash, which is good because it means no one sees Cassian naked. But Cassian also feels unfinished, like whatever he was supposed to say didn’t get said, and the door closing meant he’d never be able to say it.

Whatever “it” is.

Cassian Andor does not sleep well that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ["War Machine" by DM Stith](https://dmstith.bandcamp.com/track/war-machine). Shout-out to Krytella for beta-ing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I am a Pilot of Precision](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11313270) by [Shmaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shmaylor/pseuds/Shmaylor)




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